Can You Make Money with Online Surveys?

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Can You Make Money with Online Surveys?

In short…yes, you can actually make money with online surveys. I specifically remember sitting down in college and trying to them to make extra money.

It basically ended with wasting about an hour, getting spammed to absolute death because they were shady, and making ZERO dollars.

Fast forward six years, and I'm still not too interested in doing them because it's not the most efficient way for me to make money. However, I DO have readers that make extra money on the side by completing surveys in their spare time.

What you need to know about online surveys:

Basically, there are legit ones and non-legit ones. So far I've tried out the ones in this post that I can guarantee are above-board. As I keep testing out more I'll come back and add them to this page. Be sure to check back to this post periodically for updates!

Not everyone will qualify for every survey. Companies are looking for specific demographics on each one.

Also – sign up for as many survey companies as you can in the list below to get the most opportunities to make money.

Let's dig in. Here are the surveys I have tried out:

National Consumer Panel

I really like this National Consumer Panel survey opportunity. It's pretty unique! NCP mails a scanner for you to record all of your weekly grocery store purchases. As you participate with the scanning and surveys that are sent to your email inbox, you rack up points that can be used to purchase items.

An added benefit is that you are automatically signed up for sweepstakes for some pretty big prizes! Click here to sign up.

This is the scanner your receive from National Consumer Panel!

Survey Junkie

Survey Junkie is the newest company that I've added to the lineup, and so far the feedback has been very good. Their process is very easy, and everything is based on a point system. The surveys that are available for you to take range widely in both time to complete and the subject matter.

You can earn up to $20 per survey and $150 for focus groups with this company! Click here to sign up.

Opinion Outpost

Opinion Outpost is one of my favorites. The thing that stood out to me the most is that there were a TON of opportunities for surveys and getting points that you can redeem for cash. Click here to sign up.

Pinecone Research

These Pinecone Research surveys are for guys only, and this second one is for 18-24 year olds only. They are very simple and you can earn about $3 per survey taken. Click here to sign up.

To Recap

Yes you can make money online in your spare time doing surveys. If you are sitting around just watching TV or something, you might as well give some of these a shot. You'll probably make about $6-8/hour.

Realistically – you can probably expect to make anywhere from $100-$1,000ish per year with surveys if you are serious about it. Doesn't sound like a ton, but that's definitely better than nothing! That COULD be an extra student loan payment or a small emergency fund.

Some of the survey companies will send you roughly 4 surveys a day. If you want to do them, cool. If not, that's cool too. You can pick and choose as you please.

I'm REALLY curious if any you have had success with this (or horror stories) by doing online surveys. I think it would be awesome to give everybody a good pros/cons list since they are so popular.

Comments

I’ve never done them before, similar to you I’m just not sure they’re worth my time. Something I may look into down the line though so I appreciate the review. Are there minimum dollar amounts to be reached before they send the cash or gift card?

They’re all different but essentially yes, you have to reach a certain amount to get cash or gifts…kinda like Chuck-e-cheese’s for adults 🙂 It’s actually interesting to try them out, they ask some pretty wild questions haha

I have just started checking out Opinion Outpost and Pinecone Research just to find something that I could do when I was mindlessly watching TV or something. I will give them a try for a couple weeks and decide if it is ultimately worth my time or not. We will see!

I joined one of these survey companies and completed several surveys after reading about them on another blog. After several hours of dutifully answering questions I worked out that I was earning about AU$5 an hour. I don’t know whether you get paid more than that in the US but for that rate, and the boredom of doing the surveys, I decided “naaaaaaaaa”.

I appreciate your “some are legit, some aren’t” line. Whenever I see a blog article for “500+ ways to make $1000 in a day” or something like that, I just roll my eyes. Nothing in life (and ESPECIALLY finances) comes that easy. Thanks for the down to earth post! I’ll have to check some of these out.

Yep – there are no easy roads to making money! Even these surveys took a little bit of thought, especially the Opinion Outpost survey with all the political questions. No problem on the down to earth post – tbh I’m not trying to get rich off of survey posts haha

I remember doing one of these things (I forgot which company) but I think I became frustrated with the payout minimum and that I would have had to do so much just to get to the minimum. I wasn’t sure it was worth my time and I appreciate the review. I’m always trying to learn how to make side income and looking to allocate my time to the highest value adding projects!

I would definitely say it’s not worth EVERYONE’s time. I couldn’t sit down and do them for a long period of time (I think I have ADHD), but they would be perfect for someone that can just zone out and make some extra money.

Just like you when I was younger I joined many ‘paid survey’ websites in the hope of making some big bucks… I just wasted a lot of time and rendered my old email address unusable from all the spam.
I no longer use or have try to signup for any of these survey website. I do however complete surveys for ‘ShopperThoughts”, which comes through a few times a month and take 5-20 minutes to complete and pays anywhere between 50-250 Tesco clubcard point. As I collect these and can convert them into restaurant vouchers they equate to about £2-10, so they’re total worth the time for me.
I’ll also do the odd customer satistfaction survey for the chance to win a product or cash prize, they generally don’t take long and I’d rather the chance of winning big than a few pence.

Yeah it’s definitely not a big bucks type of thing. It’s an easy way to make a few bucks an hour extra. I definitely see it being useful for people that are bored and want to make some money from the couch. I’ll be sure to check out “Shopper Thoughts”…seems interesting!

From your monthly income statements, it looks like you’re making $100-200 a month in surveys, which is awesome! Approximately how many hours a month are you putting into surveys to get that type of yield? Of the online surveys you recommend, are there any in particular that have been more successful for you than others?

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